The Bronze Horseman (21 page)

At night she was still turned to the wall, her back to the absent Dasha, who was never home.

Tatiana would have continued this wretched way, but one morning the Metanovs heard on the radio that the Germans were trouncing their way through the countryside and, despite all measures taken by the heroic Soviet soldiers, were nearly at Luga. It wasn’t the Luga part that stunned the family and made them unable to eat or talk to each other. It was that they all knew that Luga was mere kilometers from Tolmachevo, where Pasha was safely, they thought—no, were
sure
—ensconced at camp.

If the Germans were about to steamroll through Luga, what was to happen to Tolmachevo? Where was their son, their grandson, their brother?

Tatiana tried to console her family with hollow words. “He is fine, he’ll be all right.” When that didn’t work, she tried, “We’ll get in touch with him. Come on, Mama, don’t cry.” When that didn’t work, she tried, “Mama, I can feel him still out there. He is my twin brother. He is all right, I’m telling you.” Nothing worked.

There remained no word on Pasha, and Tatiana, despite her brave talk, became increasingly afraid for her brother.

The local
Soviet
had no answers. The borough
Soviet
also had no answers. Tatiana and her mother went there together.

“What can I tell you?” the stern, mustachioed woman told Mama. “My information says only that the Germans are near Luga. It doesn’t say anything about Tolmachevo.”

“Then why isn’t there any answer when we try to call the camps?” Mama demanded. “Why are the phones not working?”

“Who do I look like, Comrade Stalin? Do I have all the answers?”

“Can we get to Tolmachevo?” Mama asked.

“What are you talking about? Can you get to the front? Can you take a bus, comrade, to the front? Yes, sure. Good luck to you.” The woman’s gray mustache moved as she laughed. “Natalia, come here, you have to hear this.”

Tatiana wanted to say something rude back, but she couldn’t muster the courage. Wishing she had tried harder to convince her family about Pasha, she led her mother out of the borough council office.

That night when Tatiana was pretending to sleep, her face to the wall, her hand on the floor below on Alexander’s copy of
The Bronze Horseman,
she overheard her parents whispering tearfully to each other. It started with her mother’s quiet sobbing, followed by her father’s comforting “Shh, shh.” Then he was sobbing, too, and Tatiana wanted to be anywhere but where she was.

Little whispers came to her, fragmented sentences, mournful longings.

“Maybe he is all right,” she heard her mother say.

“Maybe,” echoed her father.

“Oh, Georg. We can’t lose our Pasha. We can’t.” She moaned. “Our boy.”

“Our favorite boy,” added Papa. “Our only son.”

Mama sobbed.

Tatiana heard the sheets rustling. Her mother sniffed.

“What kind of God would take him away?”

“There is no God. Come now, Irina,” Papa said in a comforting voice. “Not so loud. You’ll wake the girls.”

Mama cried out. “I don’t care,” she said, nonetheless lowering her voice to a whisper once more. “Why couldn’t God take one of them?”

“Irina, don’t say that. You don’t mean it.”

“Why, Georg, why? I know you feel the same way. Wouldn’t you give up Tania for our son? Or even Dasha? But Tania is so timid and weak, she’s never going to amount to anything.”

“What kind of a life can she have here anyway, timid or not?” said Tatiana’s father.

“Not like our son,” said Mama. “Not like our Pasha.”

Tatiana put the sheet over her ears so she wouldn’t hear any more. Dasha continued to sleep. Mama and Papa soon fell asleep themselves. But Tatiana remained awake, the words crashing their agonizing tune on her ears.
Why couldn’t God take Tania instead of Pasha?

The next day after work, filled with apprehension, not believing her own nerve, Tatiana went to Pavlov Barracks. To a smiling Sergeant Petrenko she gave Alexander’s name and waited, standing against the wall, hoping for some strength in her legs.

Minutes later Alexander walked through the gate. The sharply tense expression on his face dissolved momentarily into… but only momentarily. He had circles under his eyes. “Hello, Tatiana,” he said coolly, and stood a polite distance from her in the dank passageway. “Is everything all right?”

“Sort of,” Tatiana replied. “What about you? You look—”

Blinking, Alexander replied, “Everything is fine. How have you been?”

“Not so good,” Tatiana admitted and became immediately afraid he would think it was because of him. “One thing…” She wanted to keep her voice from breaking. There was fear for Pasha, but there was something else, too. She didn’t want Alexander to know it. She would try to hide it from him.

“Alexander, is there a way you could find out for us about Pasha… ?”

He looked at her with pity. “Oh, Tania,” he said. “What for?”

“Please. Could you?” She added, “My parents, they’re in despair.”

“Better not to know.”

“Please. Mama and Papa need to know. They just can’t function.” I need to know. I just can’t function.

“You think it would be easier if they knew?”

“Absolutely. It’s always better to know. Because then they could deal with the truth.” She looked away even as she was speaking. “This is breaking them apart, the uncertainty over him.” When Alexander didn’t reply, Tatiana, chewing her lip, said, “If they knew, then Dasha and I and maybe Mama, too, would go to Molotov with Deda and Babushka.”

Alexander lit a cigarette.

“Will you try—Alexander?” She was glad to say his name out loud. She wanted to touch his arm. So happy and so miserable to see his face again, she wanted to come closer to him. He wasn’t wearing his full uniform. He must have come from his quarters, because he wore a barely buttoned shirt that was not even tucked into his army trousers. Couldn’t she come closer to him? No, she couldn’t.

He smoked silently. Tilting his head, he didn’t stop looking at her. Tatiana tried not to show him the expression in her eyes. She mustered a pale smile.

“You will go to Molotov?” Alexander asked.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Alexander said without inflection or hesitation. “Tania, whether or not I will find out about Pasha, know this—
you
have to go. Your grand-father is lucky to get a post. Most people are not getting evacuated.”

“My parents say the city is still the safest place right now. That’s why so many thousands are coming to Leningrad from the countryside,” Tatiana said with quiet authority.

“No place in the Soviet Union is safe,” said Alexander.

“Careful,” she said, lowering her voice.

Alexander leaned toward her, and Tatiana raised her eyes to him, not just eagerly but avidly. “What? What?” she whispered, but before he could say anything, Dimitri sprinted out of the gate.

“Hi!” he said to Tatiana, frowning. “What are you doing here?”

“I was coming up to see you,” said Tatiana quickly.

“And I’m having a smoke,” said Alexander.

“He needs to stop smoking just as you’re coming up to see me,” Dimitri said to Tatiana. He smiled. “Very nice of you to come, though. I’m touched.” He put his arm around her. “Let me walk you home, Tanechka,” he said, leading her away. “Do you want to go somewhere? It’s a nice evening.”

“See you, Tania,” she heard Alexander call after her. Tatiana was ready to break down.

Alexander went to see Colonel Mikhail Stepanov.

Alexander had served under Colonel Stepanov in the Winter War of 1940 with Finland, when the colonel was a captain and Alexander was a second lieutenant. The colonel had had many chances for promotion, not just to brigadier but to major general, but he refused, preferring to keep his rank and run the Leningrad garrison.

Colonel Stepanov was a tall man, nearly as tall as Alexander. He was slender and carried himself stiffly, but the movements of his body were gentle, and in his blue eyes hung a sad haze that remained even when he smiled at Alexander.

“Good morning, sir,” Alexander said, saluting him.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” said the colonel, coming out from behind his desk. “At ease, soldier.” They shook hands. Then Stepanov stepped away and went back behind his desk. “How are you?”

“Very well, sir.”

“What’s going on? How is Major Orlov treating you?”

“Everything is fine, sir. Thank you.”

“What can I do for you?”

Alexander cleared his throat. “I just came for some information.”

“I said at ease.”

Alexander moved his feet apart and placed his hands behind his back. “The volunteers, sir, what’s been happening to them?”

“The volunteers? You know what’s been happening, Lieutenant Belov. You’ve been training them.”

“I mean near Luga, near Novgorod.”

“Novgorod?” Stepanov shook his head. “The volunteers were involved in some battles there. The situation in Novgorod is not good.”

“Oh?”

“Untrained Soviet women throwing grenades at Panzer tanks. Some didn’t even have grenades. They threw rocks.” Colonel Stepanov peered into Alexander’s face. “What’s your interest in this?”

“Colonel,” said Alexander, clicking his heels together, “I’m trying to find a seventeen-year-old boy who went to a boys’ camp near Tolmachevo. There is no answer from the camps, and his family is panicked.” Alexander paused, staring at the colonel. “A young boy, sir. His name is Pavel Metanov. He went to a camp in Dohotino.”

The colonel stood quietly for a few moments, studying Alexander, and finally said, “Go attend to your duties. I’ll see what I can find out. I’m not promising anything.”

Alexander saluted him. “Thank you, sir.”

Later that evening Dimitri came to the quarters Alexander shared with three other officers. They were all playing cards. A cigarette hung languidly in Alexander’s mouth as he was shuffling. He barely turned his head to look at Dimitri.

Crouching beside Alexander’s chair, Dimitri cleared his throat.

“Salute your commanding officer, Chernenko,” said Second Lieutenant Anatoly Marazov, not looking up from his cards. Dimitri stood and saluted Marazov. “Sir,” he said.

“At ease, Private.”

“What’s going on, Dima?” Alexander asked.

“Not much,” said Dimitri quietly, crouching again. “Nowhere to go and talk?”

“Talk right here. Everything all right?”

“Fine, fine. Rumors are we’re staying put.”

“We’re not staying put, Chernenko,” said Marazov. “We’re staying to defend Leningrad.”

“The Finns are calling themselves co-belligerents.” Dimitri snorted derisively. “If they ally with the Germans, we’re as good as dead. We might as well hang up our arms.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Marazov. “Belov, did you give me this soldier?”

Alexander turned to Dimitri. “Lieutenant Marazov is right. Dima, I’m surprised by your attitude. Frankly, it’s not like you.” Alexander stopped his voice from inflection.

Dimitri smiled slyly. “Alexander,” he said, “not quite what we hoped for when we joined the army?”

When Alexander didn’t reply, Dimitri said, “I mean,
war
.”

“No, war was not what I hoped for. Is it what anyone hopes for?” Alexander paused. “Is it what you hoped for?”

“Not at all, as you know. But I had far fewer choices than you.”

“You had choices, Belov?” asked Marazov.

Putting down his cards, Alexander stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. “I’ll be right back,” he said to the other officers and strode out. With smaller footsteps Dimitri followed behind. There were too many officers in the corridor; they walked downstairs and through the side door, out onto the cobbled courtyard. It was past one in the morning. The sky was three shades darker than gray.

A few feet away from them three soldiers stood smoking. But this was as alone as they were going to get. Alexander said, “Dima, you need to stop this nonsense. I
had
no choices. Don’t go believing that. What choices did I have?”

“The choice to be somewhere else.”

Alexander made no reply. He wished he were anywhere else, other than standing in front of Dimitri, who said, “Finland is too dangerous for us right now.”

“I know.” Alexander did not want to talk about Finland.

“Too many men on both sides,
NKVD
border troops everywhere. The Lisiy Nos area is full of troops—theirs and ours—and barbed wire and mines. It’s not safe at all. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Are you sure the Finns will come down to Lisiy Nos from Vyborg?”

Alexander smoked and said nothing. Finally he spoke. “Yes. Eventually. They will want their old borders back. They’ll come to Lisiy Nos.”

“What else can we do? We’ll bide our time then,” Dimitri said. When Alexander didn’t comment, Dimitri continued. “Will the right time ever come again, Alex?”

“I don’t know, Dima. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Dimitri sighed. “Well, in the meantime, can you move me out of the First Rifle Regiment?”

“Dima, I already got you out of the Second Infantry Battalion.”

“I know, but I’m still too close to possible attack. Marazov’s men are the second line. I’d rather be recon, or clean-up. Or running supplies, something like that.” He paused. “Best chance for success in running, don’t you think?”

“You want to be running supplies? Ammunition to front-line troops?” Alexander asked with surprise.

“I was thinking more of mail and cigarettes to rear units.”

Alexander smiled. “I’ll see what I can do, all right?”

“Come on,” Dimitri said, stubbing out his cigarette on the pavement. “Try to be more cheerful. What’s the matter with you these days? Everything is all right still. The Germans aren’t here; we’re having a great summer.”

Alexander said nothing.

“Alex,” said Dimitri, “I wanted to talk to you about something… . Tania is such a nice girl.”

“What?”

“Tania. She is such a nice girl.”

“Yes.”

Dimitri said nothing for a while. “And I want her to stay that way. She really shouldn’t be coming here. And talking to
you
, of all people.”